Burning good dvd's

Fat Tony

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:hiya: I am new to this forum, so apologise if this question is not well put:

I have a dell 5000 series PC (about 8 months old). It has a dvd burner, which I have recently started to use to make back-up copies of kids films. I use dvd decrypter to rip the dvd and then dvd shrink to burn the new one. I have lost a lot of dvd's due to scratches, so intend to give the kids the back-up copies to use daily and keep the original pristine. However, I find that the copies are usually poor and 4 out of 5 will freeze at some point and are then unplayable. I have checked the surfaces and they are as new.

Is this a general thing I have to accept or due to some sort of copy protection or is it due to the media or due to me? I realise I have not given much detail (I am at work), but if you need to know anything about my set-up to able to answer, please ask and I'll find out tonight (please keep it simple, not too much tech jargon!).

Thanks
 
No this is not how copied DVDs would be expected to perform, you should expect perfect replay (in terms of smoothness of motion even if the picture quality may be slightly less due to re-compression).

When you burn the DVDs do you do a verification pass? Freezes and other playback glitches are usually a sign of poor media and/or a bad burn.

I take it BTW you're replaying on a DVD player and not the PC, if it's the latter then there are several possibilities.
 
My first guess at the cause of the freezing would be the speed you are burning the copy at. What burn speed do you use? If you stick to 2x or basically knock the speed down a bit you are more likely to get a fully playable DVD.

Mark.
 
Freezing is due to poor media used and sometimes burning too fast. It is recommended to burn at 2x or 4x max.
 
Yep, i'd try a different brand of media.
 
Can you play these discs back ok on your computer? Do you have more than one DVD player to try? It could be the DVD player the kids are using thats at fault. Some dvd players work better with either +R or -R discs, many dont like rewriteables. Make sure you have good quality media and see what the dvd player manual says about the types of media it prefers.
I use Samsung or Panasonic mostly, but Imation and Philips seem good too, never had a playback problem......so far!
Allan
 
When bulk Packed Taiyo Yuden DVD's cost under 50p each there's no reason to buy any other brand.
 
Oooh - thanks guys, there's lot's of nice, helpful people on this forum :clap: :clap: :clap: .

There's lot's to read when I get home, but be prepared for round 2 of questions! (Just about to trawl though the office looking for an umbrella - it raining cats & dogs out there :mad: )
 
I use dvd decrypter to rip the dvd and then dvd shrink to burn the new one.

I would recommend that you use DVD Shrink to rip the DVD to an ISO, then use DVD Decrypter (now dis-continued) to burn the file.

I've made numerous backups using the method posted above, the only thing that has changed is that I now use ImgBurn to burn the ISO files.

BTW, if your wondering ImgBurn is from the same guy who made DVD Decrypter.
 
Hi Tony,
Why dont you just use DVD shrink to rip & write your DVDs, if only to keep life simple!
 
Singh400 said:
I would recommend that you use DVD Shrink to rip the DVD to an ISO, then use DVD Decrypter (now dis-continued) to burn the file.

I've made numerous backups using the method posted above, the only thing that has changed is that I now use ImgBurn to burn the ISO files.

BTW, if your wondering ImgBurn is from the same guy who made DVD Decrypter.

Will a DVD player play an ISO file as a movie?
Allan
 
Shazzam said:
Hi Tony,
Why dont you just use DVD shrink to rip & write your DVDs, if only to keep life simple!


Shrink does not burn. It needs Nero. DVD Decrypter/Imgburn or CopytoDVD to burn automatically.

Will a DVD player play an ISO file as a movie?

A ISO is just a container of the video_ts and audio_ts folder off a DVD. The software will burn and create a DVD Video containing the video and audio folders.
 
I use a free tool from Ahead software called Nero DVD Speed.

I use it to check each batch of media I buy is compatible with my writer, and to find out what's the fastest write speed that will still give me very high quality writes.

http://www.cdspeed2000.com/
Steps:
1. Find one of your backup discs, that uses most of the capacity, as DVD backups generally do.
2. Download, and execute DVD Speed, then click on the Disk Quality tab, then fix the read speed at 8x, to ensure things are read at a high quality rate.
3. Click Start.

This should then take about 7 minutes to do a low level check of your written DVD and give a Quality % rating and show specifics on error rates over the disc. Ideally a low PI max of under 10 is great and quality over 90. PO errors should always be 0 otherwise it's definitely a poor quality write.

If you aren't getting those results, try burning the discs at a lower speed, try another dye formulation, and finally check your drive is good at reading this low level stuff.

regards,
Rob.
 
OK guys, thanks for all the help so far. :thumbsup: Here are some more facts:
1) I use DVD Decrypter v 3.5.4.0 to rip from the original dvd. Is this any good? Should I consider something else?
2) I use DVD Shrink v 3.2.0.15 to burn the new dvd. Is this any good? Should I consider something else? I usually just copy the film only (with no menus, extra scenes, etc), so the compression is at or very near 100%.
3) I use Maxell 4.7gb single-sided DVD-R 1-8X speed blank discs - I have no idea whether these are any good.
4) The discs are played on my Pioneer DVD575A. I will check if they play on my PC (I can't do this today)
5) I have no idea how fast I am ripping or burning my discs - how do I check this and slow things down if needed?
 
Rob.Screene said:
I use a free tool from Ahead software called Nero DVD Speed.

I use it to check each batch of media I buy is compatible with my writer, and to find out what's the fastest write speed that will still give me very high quality writes.

http://www.cdspeed2000.com/
Steps:
1. Find one of your backup discs, that uses most of the capacity, as DVD backups generally do.
2. Download, and execute DVD Speed, then click on the Disk Quality tab, then fix the read speed at 8x, to ensure things are read at a high quality rate.
3. Click Start.

This should then take about 7 minutes to do a low level check of your written DVD and give a Quality % rating and show specifics on error rates over the disc. Ideally a low PI max of under 10 is great and quality over 90. PO errors should always be 0 otherwise it's definitely a poor quality write.

If you aren't getting those results, try burning the discs at a lower speed, try another dye formulation, and finally check your drive is good at reading this low level stuff..

Thanks - I will try this.
 
bibamus said:
Can you play these discs back ok on your computer? Do you have more than one DVD player to try? It could be the DVD player the kids are using thats at fault. Some dvd players work better with either +R or -R discs, many dont like rewriteables. Make sure you have good quality media and see what the dvd player manual says about the types of media it prefers.
I use Samsung or Panasonic mostly, but Imation and Philips seem good too, never had a playback problem......so far!
Allan
I only use the Pioneer DVD575A for playback - this should be ok, right?. I will try playing a bad disc on my pc at the weekend to see if I get the same freezing.
 
KraGorn said:
When you burn the DVDs do you do a verification pass? Freezes and other playback glitches are usually a sign of poor media and/or a bad burn.
Not sure if you mean ... but probably not! I'm going to try Nero DVD Speed as recommended by Rob.Screene to check the poor copies I've made. Is there anything I can do to check the ripped dvd's quality on my hard drive before I burn a copy? What about the quality of the burn as it happens?

KraGorn said:
I take it BTW you're replaying on a DVD player and not the PC, if it's the latter then there are several possibilities.
Yes, on a dvd player.
 
Fat Tony said:
3) I use Maxell 4.7gb single-sided DVD-R 1-8X speed blank discs - I have no idea whether these are any good.
4) The discs are played on my Pioneer DVD575A. I will check if they play on my PC (I can't do this today)

Hmm 575 - try Ritek as well
 
nwgarratt said:
Shrink does not burn. It needs Nero. DVD Decrypter/Imgburn or CopytoDVD to burn automatically.



A ISO is just a container of the video_ts and audio_ts folder off a DVD. The software will burn and create a DVD Video containing the video and audio folders.

but DVD shrink does rip DVDs without any other software.

My understanding of DVD shrink (from its web site), Fat Tony try useing it to rip & burn its great:thumbsup: , is that it has Nero software is included within the program, but gives you the option to use other burning software if you wish.
When I downloded DVD shrink it didnt say you need nero for it to run -it should work without nero installed.
 
Shrink does not include Nero. It will detect if it is installed already and show the writer in the backup options. If Nero is not installed then it can only back up to a hard disk folder or to a ISO image on the hard disk.

Also, it will no longer read 100% of DVD's since Arcoss and other protections have come out (mainy in R1 so far). I have only seen a handful of Arcoss DVD's in the UK.
 
Ritek make their own blank discs and their dye is also used in many other makes of discs. The dye type used is often listed in the details of the discs when searching online.
Also be aware that Ritek make different dye types as well, ie G04 G05 etc. I have some old 2x DVD-R Rytek dye discs that I'm useing and have never had any problems with them and I think the G04 dye was considered at the time to be about the best available. But IIRC there were loads of reports on these forums about problems with the G05 dye discs when they were first released.

Mark.
 
I've found Infiniti 16 speed are pretty good, only £7 for 25 and basically non-existent levels of PI/PIF errors. You can get cheaper than that, but the quality drops off pretty fast.
 

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